Perennial
by DecepticonFlamewar
Summary: Lysandre has had a very long time to reflect on what he's done. Massive spoilers for Pokemon X and Y. Third Place winner in deviantART's Themed Fanfiction Contest.


He wondered if anyone would ever find him.

The pain was terrifying and miserable, but to say that it was unbearable was hyperbolic at best. After all, he bore it. That wasn't to say he had been entirely successful: he had faded in and out of consciousness many a time in the first few weeks. Even now, sleep occasionally dampened the pain. Sadly, for the most part, he had no escape: his plans for an eternally beautiful world had given way to eternal misery.

He wondered if anyone ever thought of him; surely the constantly shifting debris that had rained down on him in those last moments would draw the attention of those few who still lived in town, as they drew his. Surely he lived in infamy to the residents of Geosenge town, if not the remainders of Team Plasma and of the world as a whole. Surely Augustine thought of him, and by now had found the letter in Café Lysandre offering pass codes to the bunker. He reassured himself of it all, but as the pain undulated toward robbing him of consciousness, he found himself giving up hope: Lysandre knew that if he had not yet been forgotten, he would be, just as soon as the ones who knew him passed away.

As the years passed on, the seasons changed abstractly on the far-away surface, he had found new ways to occupy himself. After the first few decades, he had found forgiveness for the children who had ruined everything. They could not help their gamblers' hearts, being willing to risk everything in the hopes of saving something lost. It was the lot of children to hope, as he and Augustine had done all those years ago. He imagined their ambitions, their interventions, viewing them through the lens of the fondness he had felt when Auggie had gone away to the Tower of Mastery. He imagined Shauna most of all campaigning for a better world, Trevor calculating ways to reduce the competition for vital resources. He could see the fight between Calem and Serena escalating into a conflict over who could suppress the biggest threats to the future. His fantasies always ended in those beautiful children taking something from his ideology to complement theirs.

Still, hope was less resilient than his immortal body. Eventually, just as Augustine's trip to Shalour had ended in heartbreak, just as Augustine's life had ended decades prior, so too would the children's efforts end in failure. The rivalry between Serena and Calem would either give way to passion that would further burden the world with mouths to feed, or hatred that would undermine everything they did. Without those two to motivate them, the other children's efforts would end in failure. Their stupidity, their naiveté, would be the world's damnation, as Lysandre's own rage had been his downfall, though never his undoing.

No, nothing would ever be his undoing now, nor would it be the children's. They would all live on forever, as the old King had had, by the power of Xerneas' aura. Generations would laud those children, eternal heroes until they chose to fade from the spotlight and hear their own legends told. Never guilty of Az's malicious crimes, they would never bear the infamy he did. Lysandre would have that all to himself, perhaps, but it seemed he had already been forgotten, not long after he had been buried.

He wondered if Xerneas had felt as he did when it had settled down into its sleep of the ages, nothing but a forgotten husk of a withered tree. Did it long for companionship, wish for attention, hunger for company? Of course it hadn't. Xerneas was a god, a force of nature, a great thing whose connection with humanity was a passing amusement. Lysandre had flirted with the notion of godhood, but lying in the earth with the dead had made him realize that he was only a man, and a flawed one at that.

He wasn't sure how long had passed when suddenly he heard movement close by, rocks shifting, voices grunting. He thought he heard Augustine, but he knew too much time had passed. He willed himself to say nothing, to stay buried, but his willpower lost to loneliness.

"Help me! I'm here!"

"I'm coming!" replied a voice that brought tears to his eyes. But it couldn't have been Augustine, Lysandre thought. He must have been decades dead.

Hours passed as people shouted, Pokémon grunted, rocks shifted. Eventually more light began to filter through the cracks, and finally the dazzling gleam of day came at him. Finally, his rescuer scrambled into view, bright blue eyes and wild black hair bringing a sob to Lysandre's compressed chest.

"Augustine! I thought you were dead," he whimpered.

The older man's eyes narrowed even as tears welled up in them. "I might have been, if they hadn't stopped you. I wasn't about to take your invitation." Lysandre could feel the pressure leave his legs.

That set Lysandre sobbing, each one sending cries of agony throughout his body until finally the last stone left, taking some of the pain with it. He felt Augustine's arms wrap around him, smelled the same cologne mingled with sweat and blood, before he finally asked the question.

"How have you lived this long? How long have I been buried?"

Augustine stifled a guffaw. "Lysandre, my friend, you've been buried for six hours."

Lysandre's cheeks grew warm. He wondered if they matched his hair, yet. "Bury me and forget me, again."

That earned a little giggle. "I could never forget you, old friend. I thought that I could never forgive you, either, but I guess I have."

He looked away, back at the stones, at the centuries he thought had passed. "I don't want your forgiveness."

"I didn't want your bunker passwords. But between you and me, Lysandre, I took them."


End file.
